Turning an Early Model into a Late Model

So, what’s new around here?  The following are the most recent major changes added to the Ideal Garage:

9/25/2003

I tracked down a copy of Corvair Owners Workshop Manual by Kenneth Ball.  A scan of the cover and a review was added to “The Ideal Library.”

9/9/2003

I was inspired by a few new Corvair books available at the Corvair Underground and decided to add a fair amount of new content to “The Ideal Library” page.  The changes are listed below by category:

• New Books – Three news books were added to the library: How to Air Condition Any Corvair Vehicle, Ultimate Guides to Vairs with Air, and Converting Corvair Engines for Use in Experimental Aircraft.
   
• New or Enhanced Book Reviews – I added or enhanced several of the book reviews in the library including Accessory Installation Instructions, Corvair 1959-1968, 1969 Corvair Finger Tip Facts (30th Anniversary Edition), Corvair Guide (by Hans Tanner), and On a Clear Day You Can See General Motors.
  
  Of these, the review for On a Clear Day You Can See General Motors is the most significant.
   
• New Scanned Images – I scored a pair of 1965 and 1967 “Chevrolet Showroom Accessories Brochures” on eBay and was able to make dramatic improvements to the cover scans of these documents.  In addition to the new pictures, I also added new reviews and commentary concerning some of the accessories depicted inside the brochures.  Finally, the cover from the new 2004 Corvair Underground Catalog was also added.
   
• Other Book-related Updates – I added a partial review of Chrome Colossus - General Motors and Its Times and updated the entry for Bob Helt’s The Classic Corvair.  Full reviews of these books will be available in the next update to the website.  Finally, I revised the list of books on the Books for Corvair Beginners page to include the recently published Corvair Basics manual.

3/2/2003

Made several improvements on this rainy Sunday:

• Added a new garage to the “Your Garages” page.  The new garage is Ron T’s First Classic featuring his fine ‘62 Monza sedan.  While I was at it, I also updated the content on Norm Witte’s garage to address both the completion of his Corsa restoration project and his recently acquired ‘65 Monza convertible.
   
• Uploaded an improved and expanded “Corvair Pre-Purchase Questionnaire / Checklist.”  I had been saving tips and suggestions posted on Virtual Vairs for over a year.  The new additions increased the size of the checklist from 10 to 19 pages.
   
• Created a new mechanism that automatically notifies anyone who downloads a copy of the “Corvair Pre-Purchase Questionnaire / Checklist” whenever a new update is available.
   
• Added a great anecdote from a former GM Willow Run plant employee to the Trains and Corvairs page (i.e., “Ideal Cross-pollinization”).
   

12/1/2002

Made improvements in three areas:

• Added a picture of a Corvair-powered Trolley to the Trains and Corvairs page (i.e., “Ideal Cross-pollinization”);
   
• Added a new panel to the “Usage Statistics” page to report on different Corvair Book searches initiated using the “Ideal Library” page; and
   
• Modified the “Vote for All Corvair Books” page to take advantage of an incremental page loading feature available in Internet Explorer browsers (and ColdFusion).  The page now loads significantly faster.  Also added a “Netscape Warning Page” for Netscape (and other non-IE) browsers.

11/23/2002

Added a new feature to “The Ideal Library” page.  Users may now browse through reviews and comments submitted by other users.  Three more Corvair books and several scans of missing book covers were also added.

11/11/2002

Completed “The Ideal Library” page.  The Ideal Library is a list of over 60 books that should be of interest to Corvair owners.  The Ideal Library includes:

• A scanned image of the cover of each Corvair book;
   
• Formatted search links for buying the books at select online used booksellers;
   
• Ratings and mini-reviews submitted by visitors to The Ideal Garage; and
   
• Much, much more.

9/28/2002

Expanded the content on a few of the garages on the “Your Garages” page:

• Added a few more photos and accompanying text to Rick Norris’ page.
   
• Added two animated Corvair sequences to Felipe Sorzano’s page.  (These were actually added to the Gustavo Sorzano Art Gallery which contains artwork created by Felipe’s uncle.)
   
• Added another Route 66 photo to Pat Bremer’s Route 66 page.  The photo was taken at the “Blue Swallow” motel by Craig Hardy.

9/17/2002

Added three more garages to the “Your Garages” page and updated three of the original four garages with new photos.  Also updated the “Ideal Cross-pollinization” page with more photos.

6/1/2002

Enhanced the “Usage Statistics” page.  Statistics now show detailed usage and viewing statistics for each individual page in The Ideal Garage website, as well as a detailed look at which browser versions and operating systems are used by visitors to the site.

4/28/2002

The “Ask Dr. Corvair” parody page was added.  This page was inspired by the, ahem, spirited give and take on Virtual Vairs.

Please note that a hyper-detailed list of changes to this website can be found on the “Revision History & Coming Attractions” page.

What’s Next?

Besides fixing the handful of browser version-related bugs that have popped up, the biggest upcoming projects here at The Ideal Garage are:

• Implement an automated Body Tag Decode page.  A few excellent posts concerning how to decode Corvair Body tags have been made on Virtual Vairs.  These will be parsed and programmed in order to present automated results on this website.
   
• Create a mechanism that will allow users to generate an Adobe Acrobat file containing a facsimile of a Corvair window-sticker.  In all likelihood, this project will be executed in conjunction with the Body Tag Decode project.

While there are other changes planned, these are the major to-do’s on the good ol’ to-do list.  Please note that no estimated completion dates have been provided...

As always, if there’s something in particular that you’d like to see on this website, please don’t hesitate to drop us a line.